Passenger woes to be tackled 'in one month'

The NationJune 13, 2014 1:00 am

The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has given itself a month to tackle exploitation of passengers by taxi, motorcycle taxi and van drivers - with soldiers set to be deployed at terminals and queues to monitor operators along with police.

An NCPO subcommittee has also been set up to tackle overcharging while some traffic regulations will be updated to improve enforcement efficiency, said Lt-General Teerachai Nakvanich, the commander of the First Army Region and the chief of maintaining peace and order under the NCPO.

Taxi-motorcycle fares must be declared openly on signs at queues, while taxis must not reject passengers or accept a fare when the metre has been turned off, he said.

Buses and vans cannot carry passengers in numbers exceeding legal limits and must have seatbelts for all seats and must not overcharge passengers by exploiting the curfew, he added.

Traffic policemen must enforce regulations fairly and focus on parking violations while the issuance of licences to vans or buses must be sped up to discourage corruption by traffic policemen or officials who demand kickbacks from operators.

Teerachai said the licence-delay issue would be looked into at a later stage under the entire NCPO guideline policy. He called on police and civilian authorities to strictly tackle other crimes including gambling, narcotics, holding war weapons while also cracking down on crime bosses and other influential figures.

The NCPO has called two meetings of operators of public transport, and along with Bangkok it is planning to impose strict measures to tackle traffic congestion in large provinces including Chon Buri and Songkhla.